A couple of years ago, I read Philip Roth’s Everyman and became intrigued with his ability to get inside a character’s mind, my favorite characteristic of my favorite kind of writing: psychological realism. So, when Roth’s new Nemesis was published last fall, I knew that I would probably choose it for book club once it was out in paperback.
Set in the 1940s and early 1950s, the novel Nemesis explores the effects of the devastating disease of polio and how it chose at random young innocent children, snatching them from their families and friends, often with the result of a quick demise, if not life long paralysis. My own paternal grandfather suffered the effects of polio as a young man. He walked with a limp his entire life because of the disease. This made me so sad as a child, his limp, and his shorter leg. The older brother of one of my childhood friends contracted polio only months before the vaccine was available to his sister and to me and my family, as well as other families in my south Mississippi hometown. On Sunday afternoon, we all went to the local high school and swallowed our “sugar” pills which protected us for life. I remember the day well. I was about five or six years old. And we were the lucky generation. We were born at the right time and were protected from the debilitating disease which affected, as we all know, President Roosevelt. So, this novel had a personal interest to me before I picked it up.
The protagonist, a young twenty something, is prevented from going to WWII due to his poor eyesight. He sadly failed the test, that is in his opinion, and, therefore, was prevented from going overseas with his buddies. His grandparents with whom he lived, were relieved, thinking him safe at home teaching grammar school and junior high school children during the school year and supervising the playgrounds during the summer……until, his special loveable young boys began contracting the disease. They fell, one by one. The New York and New Jersey communities were devastated, scared, and angry. Was the physical education playground person in charge, letting their children get too hot, or too tired? Was that why these boys got polio?
Scared to death herself, the protagonist’s fiance persuaded her future husband to leave the playground and join her at a polio-free summer camp in up state New York. He arrived to find happiness and no polio, at least for the first two weeks. Then a boy in his cabin woke in the middle of the night sick, very sick, and within days was dead. The verdict: polio. It turns out that the protagonist was a symptom free carrier.
I am not going to tell “the rest of the story”, as my childhood radio star Paul Harvey would say. You, reader, must read this incredible novel, AND come join us for book club on Thursday, March 1, at noon at our dot.com building. The book is short, so there is still time to read it before next Thursday if you have not already started. The discussion will certainly prove to be lively and thought provoking. It always is! -Nan
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